


Leaves turning grey

by Swompson



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swompson/pseuds/Swompson
Summary: He reminisces about His past, and wishes He had more time with Her.
Relationships: Great Deku Tree/Farore
Kudos: 5





	Leaves turning grey

For millennia, He’d been a guardian, sworn into duty to the Goddesses that had made Him. He could still remember their faces sometimes, if He tried hard enough. One stood out in particular, the one who’d given life to the barren world around Him and taught Him how to do the same. The one who smiled at him as he watched in wonder, and who had continued to teach him and to speak with him over many years.

He remembered as the races of the world found their footing, ever grateful to the Goddesses for the life they’d given them, and the love and adoration the Goddesses had given to their people in return, watching from above. He remembered choosing voluntarily to take on a mortal form, to better watch over the domain that had been assigned to Him.

And He remembered his confusion, and feelings of betrayal, when they abandoned Him.

Without a word, they’d created an artifact that housed their power, made so only mortals could interact with it, given it to the Goddess Hylia, who, up until that point, He had never even heard about, and then just… left.

In the first centuries, Hylia came to visit sometimes, to reminisce with Him about her older sisters. She didn’t know why they left, either, and they shared their sorrow, and lightened its burden.

But then a fissure opened, and out came Demise, and the first war for the Triforce the world had ever seen broke out. It took everything from him; His land, His people, His Hylia… nearly His life. For centuries after, He lay dormant, waiting for balance to be restored to the world, for the demonic presence that was sealed away mere kilometers from Him to finally stop trying to break out of the prison it had been placed in…

For the Goddesses, any of them, to intervene.

He was only dimly aware when the second Hero came down from the skies and fixed… everything.

Demise was sealed away, seemingly for good this time. Life returned to the surface, balance returned to the world.

Hylia returned to Him.

She was different now. Mortal, like Him. She was still powerful, commanding, but she lacked divinity. She lacked memories. Speaking slowly, haltingly, in the old language of the Gods, she tried to explain where she’d been, who she was now, and how she could barely remember Him. It broke his heart to see her sadness for him, for his loss. He was too weak to respond.

He watched them as they repopulated the surface world. Watched them build villages, towns, cities, kingdoms, never forgetting where they’d come from, never forgetting the Goddesses, or their Hero, or their Queen.

He watched the Hero die of old age, in a small cottage in the woods not far from him. He watched her die years later, alone in a grand bedroom in a brand new palace.

He watched as the people slowly forgot their roots, their place in nature, the Goddesses, and Him. It angered Him, saddened Him, and He seethed in place as they tore down more and more of the nature around them, growing their cities, their riches, their hubris.

Watched as a new evil rose, and was subsequently quelled. Marveled at the people’s insistence on tearing themselves and the world around them down. Marveled at the hubris of such tiny creatures turning into such powerful evil. Marveled at some people’s courage. He thought that by now, others would have given up, would accept that there was no saving this world, and let it rot.

But He remembered Her smile, and resolved himself to guard the forests.

Year after year, His power grew and His wisdom with it. He became more aware of the forest around him, and the creatures that dwelled within it. He created new life where necessary, quelled evil where He found it, all to keep His forest and His people safe.  
His design gave birth to the Kokiri, His own people who helped Him take care of the forest, and gave Him more of a reason to keep it alive. With them came the fairies, His messengers to them, and their companions. For centuries more, He took care of His creations, as the world around the forest forgot about Him. 

After watching war after war rage on his borders, He made the Lost Woods to keep out those power-hungry people who came searching for what treasure, power or simple bloodshed they could find.

He watched as the wars that raged all around Him calmed down, for a time. Allowed the King of Hyrule and his queen passage into His lands, to speak of treaties and agreements. He needed nothing from them, of course, but… they came from Hylia’s bloodline, and He would always let what little remained of Hylia’s spirit into His home.

The new Queen reminded Him of her. The same blonde hair and blue eyes, now wrapped in royal garb instead of pink dresses and sailcloth. He watched as she and her king made their plea, and saw she was a strong leader, overshadowed by a king who was unfit for the role. He reminisced about the first of Hyrule’s kings, and compared him to the boasting oaf that stood before Him now, and realized that anyone cunning enough could deceive this man with ease.

Still, He agreed to their plan. They wanted to safeguard the entrance to the Temple of Time, and with it, the entrance to the sacred realm and the Triforce, with three Spiritual Stones. One for fire, one for water and one for the forest. They had a group of powerful mages with them, waiting on the edge of the forest, and He was their last stop before they would return to Castle town.

He wondered why they’d come. Surely, they had people they could assign this task to. People to send out in their stead. The king was clearly nervous here, his personal guard just so. Only the Queen seemed happy to be here.

One night, a week into the ritual, the Queen had come to Him. She’d shed the royal layers, only wearing a modest tunic and pants, and in that moment, He remembered Hylia’s first mortal form.

She told Him she’d insisted on coming here to speak with Him. Lately, her dreams had been troubled, and she wished to hear His wisdom, as memories from her previous life had told her that He was great, old, and wise.

She told Him of dark clouds brewing over Hyrule, of a wicked man with darkened skin and evil eyes coming out of the east, and a source of hope in this forest. He hadn’t dreamed, not in centuries, and had nothing for her. Despite His power growing ever stronger, He couldn’t find anything in his domain that fit her description.

She was disappointed, but she hid it well. He told her He’d send word to her, a fairy, if He ever noticed anything. The Queen’s smile was so reminiscent of Her that he had to swallow a sob.

She’d departed, then, and soon, the Kokiri's Emerald had been created and hidden away. For a few years, nothing of note happened.

And then, one night, He dreamed.

It was him, the man the Queen had described, on a dark horse, surrounded by fire and destruction. Like a wraith, he moved all across Hyrule, upsetting the balance, bringing corruption and sorrow.

A week later, a messenger arrived, telling Him a boy had been born in the Gerudo Desert. His awareness didn’t extend that far out into the barren wastes. Nothing grew there. Nothing for him to hold on to, just sand. For forty years, not a word came out of the desert.

In the meantime, though, new troubles arose in the kingdom. A new war came when word of the Triforce reached the people, leading many to take up arms to take it for themselves. For many years, a civil war raged across the continent. At one point, He sensed the light spirits intervening on behalf of the Goddesses, and He briefly allowed himself to hope that they’d come back to Him.

But they didn’t.

The light spirits banished a group of powerful mages to another realm, created just for them. He wondered if these were the same mages that had helped create the Spiritual stones so many years ago, but ultimately it hardly mattered. They were terrible people, and they were being sent to a dark place, fit for people who had committed atrocities to create blasphemous objects the Light Spirits called Fused Shadows. He watched silently as each of them took one of them back to their realm, sending one piece  
into the realm they called the Twilight Realm, along with the Interlopers. He thought it unwise.

And then, one night, near the end of the war, a mother somehow made her way past the Lost woods and into the Kokiri Forest, making it as far as the clearing where He stood guard, and begged Him to take her boy and raise him in safety.

The woman was dying. He couldn’t refuse her. And for the first time since His dream, He felt a glimmer of hope. This boy was important. He would take care of him.

His children silently moved the corpse, burying her under one of His roots, and took the boy in to raise him as one of their own.

Unlike the Kokiri, who had been born with a fairy at their side, the boy, Link, had no fairy. The two Kokiri who had buried the mother were sworn into silence, to protect Link and give him as much of a childhood as possible. Still, Link didn’t fit in. It wasn’t until Saria took an interest in him that Link opened up, showing the world his curiosity and awe and his unending courage.

Link didn’t talk much. He could relate; He himself had begun feeling His age, and He didn’t often talk to His children anymore. One of them, Mido, had taken to protecting the entrance of His glade, refusing anyone entry unless summoned. In another time, He would have found this unfair. But now, He was weary, and the dreams, which were now more frequent than ever, tired Him so.

Word reached Him that the King had united Hyrule again, and He wondered if perhaps He had misjudged him. The untimely death of his wife, the Queen, saddened Him, but news of a healthy daughter softened the pain. Her mother’s last act had been to name her Zelda, like Hylia’s first incarnation had been called as well. He hoped He could meet her, one day.

Link grew up. Years passed. The dreams came more frequently now, sending waves of anguish and terror He could physically feel. The man with the evil eyes and the darkened skin was in his dreams nearly every night, now. He tired of it.

He opened his eyes, and watched as a dark figure sauntered into his clearing, casually leaning against one of the many small trees.  
“I’ve come, because you have something that is mine.” The man spoke. “You have seen me in your dreams because I willed it so. I have come to bring justice for my people. I’m sure you understand the importance of that.”

Wearily, He eyed the man, reaching out to feel what he was. He recoiled, sensing something He hadn’t sensed in millennia, an evil presence so powerful it had snuffed out a Goddess…  
But it was weaker now. More mortal. There was still Malice, burning and devouring, but He could sense that this was not all this man was. He was merely cursed with it.

He remembered the words the first Zelda had spoken to him, when Hyrule was just a group of tents and a city that had only recently come down from the clouds. She’d told Him of a curse, placed on hers and the Hero’s bloodlines. Of an ancient evil, merely contained, never destroyed.

“I see what you are, Ganondorf Dragmire.” He croaked. “I have seen you millennia ago. You failed then. You will fail now.”  
Ganondorf snarled. “So be it, then. If you will not give me what I want, I will simply force you to. I will return in a week, I expect you’ll have… softened, a little bit, then.”

He cast a sign, dark magic swirling all around him. It was more powerful than any evil He had smitten from His forest before, and He could do nothing to stop it. He wondered if He would get to meet Her again, if He were to die here.

At first, He felt nothing. Ganondorf was gone, and the stain his magic had made on the grass around him was already fading. He wondered if He had merely imagined it, if His dreams were finally real enough to be indistinguishable from the real world.  
And then He felt it, a corruption inside Him, growing and devouring him from the inside out. He would have screamed, in pain or in terror, or merely in fear for His children if He were to die here.

He’d always known He’d eventually die. He was as mortal as the forest around Him; He’d merely grown incredibly old. He knew that His time would have come soon, but it was supposed to be later, a few centuries at least… He’d always thought he’d have more time to prepare his children for the responsibility of taking care of the forest. 

But He didn’t die, not yet, and He knew it was time to act now.

He used only a small amount of His magic, but it felt like a monumental task, and He knew He wouldn’t have long. He called forth a fairy from the void, with a singular purpose; it was time to send Link out to face his destiny.

He lamented, quietly, that it wasn’t time yet. Link was too young, but he needed to act now, to stop Ganondorf and his plans before it was too late. There was no doubt inside of Him now; He knew Link was born for this, specifically, and saw the Goddesses’ hand in his creation. As He watched Link moving around the forest, gathering a sword and a shield, He cursed Mido for his refusal to let Link pass without weapons, even though He could now feel the corruption spreading through His forest. Already, Deku babas and Deku scrubs were beginning to infest Him; the rest of the forest wasn’t doing much better.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Link arrived in the clearing. It had been some time since He’d last seen him, and he had grown. Clad in green and carrying a sword and a shield, he looked every bit as ready as the Hero that had helped seal Demise, so long ago.

He realized Link resembled him, too.

He told Link about the curse that had been placed on Him. That he needed to fight the corruption inside of Him and emerge victorious. He knew He could just give the Kokiri's Emerald to Link, but he needed to be tested, like he would be tested in the temples all over Hyrule, to hone him into a weapon and to prepare him to face the ultimate Evil.

Link was too young. He shouldn’t be honed into a weapon. For a moment, he allowed himself to curse the Goddesses’ plan. But not for long.

He felt relief when Link succeeded, a slight easing of the pain, even though He knew that by now, it was too late for Him. He watched as Link exited Him, and for a moment, He allowed Himself to observe just how strange that was, and how strange it had been to feel this child walking around the small ecosystem that had grown inside of Him.

He told Link, with the last of His breath, about the Goddesses and his Destiny, and He told him to go to Castle Town. To find Zelda. He grieved for a moment, that He would never meet her.

And then the last of His strength was gone, sapped out of Him and into the forest, to keep it going for as long as it could without His guidance, and He hoped his replacement would be wise and fair. He watched as His trunk greyed, His leaves fell and His roots cracked.

He felt her behind Him. Felt her wrap her arms around Him, felt her smile against His back.

“Farore.” He breathed.

“Deku.” She smiled. For the first time in Millennia, he saw Her, and She smiled.

“Your work is done now. You can rest.” She smiled at Him still, though it was tinged with sadness. He would do anything to rid Her of that sorrow, but He knew it was for Him. He could already feel Himself fading.

“I only wish I’d had more time with you.” He managed. He was tired now, more tired than ever before. “I guarded your forest, nourished the life you’ve blown into the realm so long ago. Every day I missed your voice. Your guidance.” He allowed himself to look Her in the eye, but only for a moment. She was a Goddess, after all, and He, only a Guardian Deity. “Your smile.”

“I wish it could have been different. But you’re here now. You can rest. I’ll stay with you.” Her smile was gone now. Never had he seen a Goddess cry. He’d always imagined it would be graceful. It was not. “I left Hylia with you. I hoped she would ease the pain of our parting. But she left you alone for so long…”

“Neither of us had any control over what happened. But every time I saw her, my burden was eased. It was my honor to take care of your lands. But it was hard.”

“I know. I am so sorry.” She cried. “Of all my creations, I loved you the most. Letting you go was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“I’m just happy I get to see you again.” He murmured. He felt weak, now. The last of His consciousness was slowly fading away. “Please. Watch over Link. He needs your guidance.” He spoke, slowly.

“I will.” She spoke. “It will not be easy for him. But he will be okay. I promise.”

He felt Himself smile, and wondered how long it had been since He had. “Then all will be well.” He said, softly.

“All will be well.” She echoed. She smiled at him, one last time.  
And then He was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> So I went a little nuts with this one. I tried to follow the official timeline, and I know the Great Deku Tree isn't actually in Skyward Sword, but there is a huge tree in the Faron woods so I just went with that. I've never played four swords and I never finished Minish Cap, and I don't think anything important happens in them in relation to the Great Deku Tree, so I only vaguely alluded to them. Also, I guess it is a bit weird to ship a tree with a Goddess, but I belive that Farore is the most passionate about life in Hyrule, and would care about its protector a lot. I have no idea why the Goddesses didn't stick around after creating Hyrule, though. The way the Great Deku Tree tells it in OOT is that they leave right after creating everything, but I choose to believe they stuck around for at least a little bit. I searched the internet for any clue as to why the Goddesses decided to bounce, if they even care, but I didn't find antything satisfying and i don't want to diverge from canon too much, so I just left it ambiguous. If you have theories or ideas, though, or just general feedback, I'd love to hear it! I'll be making more stories like this in the near future. Probably.


End file.
